World Series Final Game Draws Over 50 Million Viewers Across the US, Canadian and Japanese Markets.
The nail-biting 11-inning matchup where the Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate 51M spectators across the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball reported this is the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 showdown between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s memorable contest drew over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a 16% improvement compared to the previous finale between the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English program in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game series recorded 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two straight seasons.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the total US average was over 16 million. The overall World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million watchers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings after 2017.
MLB announced that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
